Page 29 of My High School Rebel Boyfriend
Mitchell pulled his hand away, rolling his eyes. “Did not.”
“Did so. He was rubbing itandliking it,” Titan teased, enjoying the attention. I couldn’t help but smile at the banter. Titan reached over and ruffled Mitchell’s hair, making Mitchell squirm and pull away. And when Titan nudged him in the ribs, he grimaced and looked up, catching my eye. The beginning of a smile touched his lips but I spun around quickly, not wanting to see the sneer that was bound to come.
The teams were divided into two pools for the tournament and our first game against lowly-ranked Lincoln High was an assured victory. Coach let some of the juniors start, and I didn’t mind sitting on the bench. The whole team had done a warm up together (I’d made sure I’d gone into Titan’s group), but there was something missing, a spark that I couldn’t muster, a festering notion that I was wasting my time and energy. With the stadium buzzing with young, talented, healthy players why would any college seriously consider me? I’d be the weak link in a squad, the one who would let the team down.
And Mitchell Finlayson knew that.
It’s probably why he kept watching me, probably recommending to Coach that I not play at all. Presumably he’d given his account of the hiking trip, full details of me collapsing on the trail and being helped onto the bus. Coach Barber had him with the iPad doing the stats and figures, I wished he’d keep his eyes on that instead of turning around to look at me every so often.
Our parents arrived just as our second game started, Mom waving vigorously to me from the stands. I waved back. She wasn’t somuch a fan of volleyball but loved the interaction with the other parents. I could see her talking to Mr. Christopher, wearing his ancient blue and yellow River Valley jacket.
The game against Centennial High was going to be an easy win too, so I asked to be rested. Coach could hardly refuse me, and I sat next to Mom.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, always full of concern.
“I’m okay,” I said. She let my head fall against her shoulder and comforted me with a squeeze.
“Chin up, Harper,” she said with a smile. She knew how devastated I’d been after Mr. Barron had phoned her about my incident. And it had been the tipping point where she’d insisted she ring the diabetic health care team and consider getting me put on an insulin pump. At my initial diagnosis an insulin pump had been an option to managing my diabetes. But there were so many things about it I hadn’t liked: having a small tube inserted into my skin and wearing a device which screamed to the worldDiabetic!But with the number of lows I’d had maybe it would be best to have a pump. In some odd way to me it was like admitting defeat—diabetes had gotten the better of me and I needed a machine to manage it.
“Hey, Harper.” I looked up to see Mitchell standing to the side, holding a volleyball. I’d been watching the game but not watching the game, if you know what I mean. Yeah, I could see Bella was serving, but I was lost in my own mind of hopeless thoughts.
“Uh, Miss Barber wants you to warm up.”
“Hello,” Mom said, all friendly and shrugging my head off of her shoulder.
“Hi, Mrs. Dent,” Mitchell said, raising his fingers in a wave.
“Wow, Mitchell, you’ve gotten tall,” Mom said, smiling at him. Mom had an uncanny memory of remembering every kid I’d ever gone to school with, going all the way back to kindergarten. “Here, take thiswith you, sweetie.” She passed me a Gatorade bottle. I stood up and sulkily followed Mitchell down to the warm up area.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, looking around for our girls. The Westbridge team was over in one corner. “Where are the others?”
He didn’t answer, but asked, “Why did you ask to be rested?” I frowned. Who did he think he was? The coach? “Why didn’t you wanna play?”
“I can do my own warm up.” I took off my jacket and put it on the bench, taking a quick sip of my drink. Better to have high blood sugars than low. Neuropathy, nephropathy and retinopathy could be worried about in the future.
“Harper?” He tossed the ball up to himself, catching it on his fingertips. “Hey, Harper?”
“What?” I snapped, focusing on my ankle as I pulled it for a quad stretch.
He seemed taken aback and tucked the ball under his arm. “I was worried about what happened the other day, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.” His voice was soft and it almost sounded like he cared, but I too entrenched in self-pity and staring so aggressively that I couldn’t scale back my anger if I’d tried.
“Oh yeah? Suppose you had a good old laugh about it,” I said, “You were right all along, I’m weak, I can’t even do a simple hike without practically dying.”
“I didn’t laugh about it,” he said, stepping closer to me. I was wobbling on my one leg, still holding the stretch, stubbornly refusing to put it down and switch legs. He reached for my shoulder, steadying me. I didn’t want him to hold me, but I didn’t move away. “I don’t think you’re weak, Harper.”
“Oh, you must have a pretty bad memory then,” I said, releasing my ankle and falling away from him. I took off for a jog, freeing myself from his familiar boy scent, crossing the floor and stretchingon the opposite wall, as far away from him as possible. Then I did my footwork drills.
He came alongside me, tossing the volleyball between his hands. “Wasn’t there a reason you were doing extra training?” I ignored him, doing a backwards jog to get away from him. He was persistent. “Titan said you wanted to give yourself a chance to be seen by the scouts.”
I did some jumping jacks, not part of our usual routine, but I was under duress. My brain wasn’t functioning and it had nothing to do with blood sugars.
“If you want to be seen you have to be on court, you can’t sit on the bench.” He stood in front of me. I kept jumping. “I’ve been checking your stats. You have the best attack percentage in the team. Higher than Maddie.” My breathing was labored. “You have so much talent and you’re the hardest worker out there.” I was at about 30, and my shirt was flying up, revealing too much of my belly I imagined. How many did I intend to do? Till I passed out? Till he decided to leave? “You deserve to give yourself a chance.”
I stopped, leaning over, taking a moment to recover, to rearrange my top and shorts. “Sometimes talent isn’t enough. Hard work isn’t enough,” I said, swiping at my sweaty forehead, storming over to my drink bottle.
“And sometimes it is,” he said, following me. “I’ll set the ball, you can kill it.”
